Strong Women

A strong woman….that is all I strive to be and all that I strive to teach my daughter.
What makes a strong woman?  Is it someone who people call a bitch, someone who puts people down?  Nah, they are just bitches.
I am a strong woman because of my past experiences and for the fact that I stay a rock for my daughter.  My life has thrown me curves and I have come out stronger because of it.  Now…how do you explain to a new relationship the reasons you don’t tell them everything.   Are your past experiences really what you want to put out there for your new relationship?  Yes, it has shaped who you are but do they really need to know everything?
In my life, I have not let any of my relationships know everything in my past.  No…correct that.  My first serious relationship.  I let him in on my hopes, dreams and secrets.  He took that information, twisted it and used it against me.  Is it any surprise that I don’t give up my information and my past easily?
Yeah, it sucks that one “bad apple” ruined that for me.  I am getting better.  Really I am.  I have taken deep breaths and let some of it out but as for relationships….no, I don’t plan on telling it all.  Am I setting myself up for failure?  Maybe….Probably.  Will it help to tell someone new all my skeletons?  I can’t think that it would.  Why would I put my skeletons out for someone else to feel better about their problems?
I have talked to Councillors in the past.  Have they helped?  Maybe, but I don’t think so.  Oh sure, they have allowed for me to talk it out.  Absolutely.  Has talking helped.  I don’t know about that.  I hear the pity in their voices, the pity in their eyes.  Really, is it anything  that hasn’t happened to others in the past?  The things that have happened in my past happen everyday to thousands of people.  I don’t want pity.  It really are all things that can be overcome.  And that is why I don’t talk about it.
Only a very special person in my life will ever know everything.  Neither of my ex-husbands know everything.  My parents don’t know everything.  I don’t even have a friend who knows absolutely everything.  And for now that is how it will remain.